I got the opportunity to work with producers Elisa Pugliese (Key) and Avram Ludwig as a second unit DP for the film “American Ultra” starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in a stoner version of the Bourne films. Fun stuff. Inside scoop? A lot of what we shot was at Doug Liman’s house in TriBeCa – he’s the director of the original Bourne Identity and executive producer of the franchise.
Most of the work was focused on detail shots for Mike’s flashback sequences – and a few with Jesse himself. We shot all over NYC and her waterways, as well as in Connecticut for the little bits of memory that pepper the film when Mike is trying to recover his identity from programmed amnesia (think “MK Ultra” style CIA assassin experiments).
Nima Nourizadeh was also quite a joy to work with as he knew exactly the energy level of everything he needed to complete his film. A little bit of phantom hi-speed work, some other slow motion with red epic-X, and even some stills work. It all comes together in a very entertaining romp through a rural spy-infested town involving explosions galore.